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Hitler
Adolf Hitler Early Years Born in 1889, Adolf Hitler was the son of an Austian customs official. He did not succeed in secondary school, but eventually made his way to Vienna to become an artist.From 1905, Hitler lived a bohemian life in Vienna, financed by orphan's benefits and support from his mother. He worked as a casual labourer and eventually as a painter, selling watercolours of Vienna's sights. The Academy of Fine Arts Vienna rejected him in 1907 and again in 1908, citing "unfitness for painting". At the time Hitler lived there, Vienna was a hotbed of religious prejudice and racism. Fears of being overrun by immigrants from the East were widespread, and the populist mayor Karl Lueger exploited the rhetoric of virulent anti-Semitism for political effect. German nationalism had a widespread following in the Mariahilf district, where Hitler lived. German nationalist Georg Ritter von Schönerer, who advocated Pan-Germanism, anti-Semitism, anti-Slavism, and anti-Catholicism, was a significant influence on Hitler. Hitler read local newspapers such as the Deutsches Volksblatt that fanned prejudice and played on Christian fears of being swamped by an influx of eastern Jews. At the outbreak of World War I, Hitler was living in Munich and as an Austrian citizen volunteered to serve in the Bavarian Army. On a recommendation by Lieutenant Hugo Gutmann, Hitler's Jewish superior, he received the Iron Cross, First Class on 4 August 1918. Hitler described the war as "the greatest of all experiences", and was praised by his commanding officers for his bravery. His wartime experience reinforced his German patriotism and he was shocked by Germany's capitulation in November 1918. His bitterness over the collapse of the war effort began to shape his ideology. Like other German nationalists, he believed the Dolchstoßlegende (stab-in-the-back myth), which claimed that the German army, "undefeated in the field", had been "stabbed in the back" on the home front by civilian leaders and Marxists, later dubbed the "November criminals". Politics and Policies Historians and biographers note some difficulty in identifying Adolf Hitler's political views. His writings and methods were often adapted to need and circumstance, although there were some steady themes, including anti-semitism, anti-communism, anti-parliamentarianism, and anti-gingerism. German Lebensraum (living space), belief in the superiority of an "Aryan race" and an extreme form of German nationalism. Hitler personally claimed he was fighting against Jewish Marxism. Hitler's views were more or less formed during three periods: 1. His years as a poverty-stricken young man in Vienna and Munich prior to World War I, during which he turned to nationalist-oriented political pamphlets and antisemitic newspapers out of distrust for mainstream newspapers and political parties; 2. The closing months of World War I when Germany lost the war; Hitler is said to have developed his extreme nationalism during this time, desiring to "save" Germany from both external and internal "enemies" who, in his view, betrayed it; 3. The 1920s, during which his early political career began and he wrote Mein Kampf. Hitler was also greatly influenced by the fascist ideals of Benito Mussolini who was appointed Prime Minister of Italy in October 1922 after his "March on Rome". In many ways, Adolf Hitler epitomizes "the force of personality in political life" as mentioned by Friedrich Meinecke. He was essential to the very framework of Nazism's political appeal and its manifestation in Germany. So important were Hitler's views that they immediately affected the political policies of Nazi Germany. He asserted the Führerprinzip ("Leader principle"). The principle relied on absolute obedience of all subordinates to their superiors. Hitler viewed the party structure and later the government structure as a pyramid, with himself—the infallible leader—at the apex. Hitler firmly believed that the force of "will" was decisive in determining the political course for a nation and rationalized his actions accordingly. Given that Hitler was appointed "leader of the German Reich for life", he "embodied the supreme power of the state and, as the delegate of the German people", it was his role to determine the "outward form and structure of the Reich". To that end, Hitler's political motivation consisted of an ideology that combined traditional German and Austrian anti-Semitism with an intellectualized racial doctrine resting on a platter of social Darwinism. Hitler's views were also shaped by an "ill-digested" mix of Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, Wagner, Gobineau, Sorel, H.S. Chamberlain, Paul de Lagarde, Alfred Ploetz and other racial hygiene theorists.